ABSTRACT
The above words characterize one client's roller-coaster experience of being in a dual relationship and set the scene for a potent story of relational con¯ict and stress. Extreme, roller-coaster shifts between love and hate, passion and pain, intimacy and abandonment were common. However, not all relationships ended in despair or damage and several clients saw their experience as positive or bene®cial. Irrespective of their overall impression of the relationship, clients' experiences crossed a broad spectrum of emotions ranging from positive to negative. Those who felt most damaged by the process spoke of feeling worthless, paralysed, despairing, afraid, ashamed, abused, or desperate, and some were completely debilitated by the experience. Some shut down emotionally to defend against feeling their reactions in the relationship, while others commented on being `¯ooded' with powerful emotional reactions that hindered their capacity to respond to the
own knowledge and experience of therapy and psychological processes. This client's experience was typical:
although cognitively I knew that the action was wrong, I felt overwhelmed with longing and conviction that this and only this person could understand and help me.
